ANNUAL RANKING: The Top 50 Owners Of Shopping Centers

The surge of mergers and acquisitions that took place during 1997 has affected the makeup of our Top 50 Owners of Shopping Centers -- although no acquisitions were great enough to loosen Simon DeBartolo Group's hold on the No. 1 position.

Owning nearly twice as much GLA as the No. 2 owner (ERE Yarmouth) and reporting more than 30 new, expansion and/or redevelopment projects on the drawing board (see Simon DeBartolo's listing in the Developers Expansion Plans), Simon DeBartolo shows no signs that it will be relinquishing its No. 1 position anytime soon.

When compared to last year's rankings, Kimco Realty Corp., Developers Diversified Realty Corp., The Mills Corp. and George D. Zamias Developer have made strong upward moves in the rankings.

The ranks of the Top 50 also have widened as a result of all the transfers of ownership in 1997. Now listed among the Top 50 Owners are Regency Realty Corp., Vornado Realty Trust, Excel Realty Trust, JP Realty Inc., S.R. Weiner and Associates Inc., JDN Realty Corp. and Bradley Real Estate Inc.

Shopping Center World's ranking of the industry's Top Owners is based upon total shopping center GLA owned, as reported in our "Annual Industry Survey." The 1998 survey was mailed in the fall and was closed for compilation and comparison on Nov. 14, 1997.

Respondents were requested to report GLA owned through Dec. 31, 1997. They were instructed to report only shopping center GLA (enclosed and open-air centers) and only their percentage of ownership in the case of joint ventures.

Additional survey results will be published this March, when Shopping Center World ranks the industry's Top Managers.